A quick note on generational rebellion and the effect of intelligence on evolution of man and culture.

I think every generation suffers from some sort of rebellion of sorts. It's only natural, we're hard wired as a species to leave from our parents care, and if we can't, in our state of higher intelligence, find a reason to dislike our parents, then we learn to rebel against the world. It comes in select forms every generation, as peers find more in common with those sharing their sense of aspiration, and therefore tend to share ideas and mimic changes.

Our generation's "rebels" are no big mystery. From the way we dress, to the way we spend our time, there are many ways we exercise life differently than our parents did or do, but none as poignant and impactful as our moral standing, and accepted beliefs. Once upon a time, religion ruled the world. Once upon a time, men of color were kept as slaves. Once upon a time women had no rights, and talk of sex was sinful. Those practices and beliefs are gone now (for the most part - one can't speak for the entire world on the subject of culture, of coruse), rightfully stifled as younger generations grew to question their parents, and the world their parents lived in.

Look back at a few movements in the past - what age group dominates the popular movements that would become an icon of their time? Teenagers and young adults. Flappers, punks, hippies, mods, anarchists, the list goes on and on, but the age group stays the same. These volatile young adults grow up to hold these new beliefs that they've taught themselves. They put them to work in the society that they integrate themselves in, and suddenly the influence of the generation before wanes, and an entirely new system, almost the same, but slightly different, slightly better, builds in its place.

But what of today's generation? What are we learning now? We're changing our bodies, for one. We chemically control the cycle of birth, we adorn our skins with artwork and phrases of meaning, we pierce and accent our bodies with pieces of metal and colored plastic. We physically and aggressively change our image as it would have been in the wild. There's a word for that - when members of a species start to change in appearance - its called evolution.

We, as a race, have learned to aggressively evolve ourselves WITHOUT a genetic alteration from birth. Every generation moves us forward socially, away from the basic instincts of the wild, and away from the short sighted customs of the past, and now we're physically moving away from the wild.

We are the generation of physical alteration. We are the generation that will define the way our body looks the way we see fit. We are the generation that will bring us one step closer to our next evolutionary state - we are the stepping stone to the future - a future as a race that cognitively defines its image.